Sessions
by Astrid
Summary: RENT fic about Mark in therapy. Finally finished.
1. Session One

****

Session One

The room is small. Well decorated, dark mahogany accenting everything, the bookshelves, the legs of the huge chair, the desk; a gorgeous fake plant spreading out on the opposite side of the room, books of every sort laying around, stacked nicely on shelves. It's a bibliophiles heaven and all I can do to keep myself from peeking at a few titles. The leather on the chair keeps me distracted, its reflective surface smooth to touch as I run my hands over it. The sun from the two huge windows bounces off of it and gives a white glare. The view is beautiful. All the high rise buildings are in plain view, I can see traffic if I peek over far enough. But then my head spins a little and I retract and submit to the comfort of my chair.

It has a distinct clean smell in here. Almost like the waiting room of a hospital, only clearer, not marred by the different scents of people and their medicines. It's crisp and sharp. Like nothing in here has ever been touched. I'm scared to touch any of it.

It's quiet.

Not normal quiet. You'd expect an empty room to be quiet, but this one is too much for me to deal with. We're high up enough that the traffic's roar is reduced to a low hum. It's driving me crazy. I want to do something to break this silence, something to amuse myself while I sit here and wait. I opt for standing and walking. I pace the desk once or twice, eyeing the papers that lie there, hands grazing the chair as I pass, and find my feet moving towards that huge book shelf that lines the wall closest to the chair I had been sitting in. I stop in front of it and glance over the titles of a few leather bound selections.

_Anatomy of the Mind_

Psychology and Pathology: The Brain and its Behavior

Essential Psychopharmacology of Depression and Bipolar Disorder

Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

Diagonally Parked in a Parallel Universe: Working Through Social Anxiety

Understanding Yourself and Others: An Introduction to Temperament

All a little overwhelming to me. Nothing that I can wrap my head around right now, I know nothing about what these books are talking about, even in the titles. They remind me quickly of where I am, why I'm here, what's probably going to happen here. The awkward questions, the reluctant answers, the silences. I hate silence.

The door opens without a sound, but I feel the shift and see it out of the corner of my eye. I turn my head and take my hand away from the bookshelf with an apologetic look. The woman in the doorway offers a smile and shakes her head, closing the door behind her.

"Like books?" Her voice is soft and gravelly, high pitched. She reminds me of someone. I look her over, taking note of her formal attire, her dark curls pulled back into a no-nonsense twist, her complexion is like milk chocolate, light and dark at the same time.

"Not this kind." I reply, my own voice quiet. Those are the first words I've said all day. She moves fluidly over to her desk and takes a seat, like water splashing on a table top, with ease and delicacy. She nods for me to sit in the adjacent chair, and I comply with something less than grace, looking like an awkward adolescent to her cool, confident adult. She tips her head at me and turns over a fresh page in her yellow legal pad. I notice how cliched that is.

"Mark, correct? I'm Dr. Lopez, but you're welcome to call me Anne. Would you prefer I call you something else?" Those brown eyes don't look up at me as she scribbles away. What kind of question is that?

"No. Mark is fine." I reply. This is already awkward and frustrating. She nods, marks it down and finally looks up at me, clasping her hands in front of her.

"Alright. I'm going to have to ask you a few preliminary questions." That voice took a tone that I didn't quite like. Almost as though she were talking at me rather than to me. I nod, inferring that I understand and she continues. "Are you on any medication? Cold medicine, prescription anything?"

I shake my head no. She makes a quick mark on a separate paper and moves on.

"Do you have any emotional reactions to anything you've taken in the past by prescription?" She pushes a pair of wire-rimmed glasses up onto her nose that resemble mine and I shake my head again.

"I don't think so." I answer quietly, finding myself biting at the fingernail on the index finger of my right hand. I wonder how she's going to interpret that. 

"Any physical?" She blows right over my nervousness like a footnote and I shake my head in silence.

"Who do you live with currently, Mark?" She asks, pushing the paper that apparently has my medical records on it into another folder and slips out another one. I swallow and clear my throat, vocal chords still getting used to speech this morning.

"My roommate, Roger." I answer as steadily as I can manage. She nods and makes some marks as she speaks.

"Age?"

"Twenty eight." My voice is short and quiet still.

"Relationship?" 

"Roommate...friend..." I shrug my shoulders and slump in my chair a little more. She looks up at me and smiles.

"How well do you two get along?" She asked, seemingly out of just curiosity, but I know. I know there's something more to her question.

"Alright." I answer plainly. She continues to stare at me in expectance. "We're friends, we fight, we get along, whatever..." 

She gives a nod and inhales. "I'm going into this assuming that you know what you're headed into. I'm a therapist. I'm here so you can talk to someone. I'm here to listen and to understand. If I feel you have something seriously wrong, I can send you to a psychiatrist who can prescribe the necessary medicine. As of now, you come here and you talk to me about what's bothering you, and I assess your problem."

Problem. I've got a problem. 

"You know that, correct? That I'm here acting as just a therapist."

You know that I don't want to be here, correct?

I nod my head in compliance and she smiles. "Good. Well then why don't you start out by telling me why you're here."

I don't want to. My face is formed in a tight stance, and it's like I can't move it. Or I don't want to. I just stare from behind my glasses for what seems like a year before she speaks up again, that graveled voice a little louder now.

"Mark?"

"Huh?" I pass it off like I was spacing out, thinking about something else, not paying attention. I can't tell if she buys it.

"Would you like to tell me why you're here?"

No. 

I inhale and sit up a little more, bouncing my knee in that nervous way that I tend to do. "I put my hand through a window." She expects more and I don't give it.

"Well, then maybe you should be in a hospital and not here." she replies sarcastically. I cringe and fall right into her trap, hoisting up my sweater sleeve to expose the bandage around my right wrist, blotches of pink still evident from yesterday.

"I went to the hospital. They sent me here." She leans in and looks at my bandage with a quizzical glance.

"Are you sure you put your hand through a window, Mark?"

"I'm not suicidal if that's what you're implying. And I sure as hell didn't dream it. Do you want to see?" I slip my fingers under the bandage in a feeble attempt to lift it. She holds up a hand.

"No. I believe you." Her voice is quieter now. Cautious. "Now, why you did it is the question."

No it isn't. I know why I did it, there's no question about it. But I shrug my response, feet tapping against the carpeted floor.

"Had a grudge against the window?" She asked with another patronizing lilt. I glared at her, but she didn't move.

"Because if it wasn't the window, it would have been the chair. And if it wasn't the chair, than it was going to be him. I figured the window would make the most impact."

"It was going to be who?" She leaned forward, pen poised, ready to attack the paper. Ready to commit my words to something.

"Roger." I mutter. "It was stupid, a fight about nothing."

"Well then if it was about nothing, why did you manage to get so angry that you wanted to put your hand through the window?"

Damn her and her tricks, her ability to see through my words, her ability to assess that I'm lying. I stay silent and hope she'll forget that she asked me that question.

"Start from the beginning. Why were you fighting with your roommate?" She adjusts her glasses and it reminds me of myself.

"I'd rather not."

Those brown eyes peer at me in a disapproving glare rather quickly. I stay silent.

"I can't help you if you don't talk."

"That's the point."

She places her pen down and folds her hands in that condescending way that teachers do when you're in high school and you've committed a reportable offense.

"So you don't want to talk?" She asked. "Fine. We can both sit here in silence for an hour each week, and you can deal with whatever's going on in that head of yours on your own, which you seem to be content to do. Or you could just not come here. Save yourself the money. Look, I don't have much preference either way, but if you reopen that wound with another little fit of anger, I'll blame myself."

I sit here silently still. I'm not about to confess my problems to this woman. I barely know her name, never mind her credibility as a doctor...or a person. 

She sits back in her chair. "Time is money, Mark. You can waste it, or you can take advantage of it and possibly fix something."

"You act like something's wrong with me." I manage to spit out.

"You don't think there is?" I watch as Dr. Lopez raises a caramel colored brow at me and I cave.

"Of course something's fucking wrong with me, but nothing that I can fix by talking to some woman in a stuffy little office for an hour a week." The words shoot out of my mouth like delightful weaponry.

"Excuse me, " I figure I'm in for it now. "But my office is neither stuffy nor little." 

A smile threatens to crack my face, but I ignore it. Suppress it. As usual.

"Granted." I mutter, standing. Dr. Lopez's eyes follow me, but she makes no motion to stop me from getting the hell out of here.

"Next week, Mark. I want you here, and I want you ready to say something." She commands as I throw the door open.

"Yeah..." I mutter, letting it close behind me.


	2. Session Two

****

Session Two

I told myself I wasn't going back. I promised myself.

Then why am I sitting here across from her again? Listening to her ask me the same question I refused to answer last week, only this time I'm letting her question sink in. I'm actually answering it myself, in my head.

"Why are you here, Mark?" Christ, the woman sounds like a broken record. That has to have been the third time she said that to me. I sigh, run my hand through my already messed hair and look up at her.

"Because I'm sick of..." I pause. That's a good start, right?

"Sick of what?" Dr. Lopez asks, jotting something down.

_If you weren't out at all hours, nowhere to be found, nowhere we can reach you, this would have never happened!_

I shake my head and hear Dr. Lopez again.

"Mark? You were saying?"

My eyes rest on the arm of my chair, my fingers tapping against the wood, wondering why she didn't have a couch like the shrinks on TV. "I don't know. I'm sick of things being my fault."

She nods and scribbles with flowing script that I can barely see.

"What's your fault?" She asks, putting her notebook away, removing her glasses and looking at me. I don't like that. I want her to go back to writing.

I let my eyes go anywhere but to her.

"I don't know...what isn't my fault?" 

She tsks and leans back. "Well how about this whole hand thing? What was your fault then?"

I hold my head and lean forward, elbows on my knees. "My friend has AIDS. He's sick, and...I was out. I took the only car we have and went to dinner with my friend. And he had some sort of...emergency while he was at our house visiting Roger. Roger panicked, no car, no cab money. Couldn't call an ambulance, our phone bill was late so they shut us off...and I had the car. Someone who lived downstairs finally came home and took him. I get home and there's a note, I fly to the hospital..." I shake my head and cut off. Dr. Lopez nods and acknowledges that I've given her enough to work with.

"So that was what you fought with Roger about?" She asks, hands placing flat on her desk. I nod again. "Is Roger someone who...says things out of emotions and not logic?"

I resist the urge to burst out laughing. "The day Roger uses logic when he speaks is the day that hell freezes over." 

"Well then why did you get so angry? You know that he says things because he's angry..."

"Why are you taking me so seriously? I do things when I'm angry. Why do I get sent to you when he has the same reactions to anger?" I question. 

"Because Roger didn't put his hand through a window and require 18 stitches. Roger didn't sever a major artery in his wrist. And Roger didn't come back here willingly. You do know that you're here because you want to be, right?" She asks, again, trying to make something my fault. It's my fault I'm here. My fault I keep coming back.

"No, I don't want to be here, Dr. Lopez. I don't want to be anywhere near this fucking building, I want to be home, in bed." I grumble.

"What's stopping you, Mark?" She asks, sounding annoyed now. "The door's right there, I can trash your file and we're done."

Emma's voice rings in my ear. _Maybe this is the best thing for you right now. Just go and do the required 10 sessions and you don't have to go any further after that if it isn't helping you..._ Reason. Sense.

I exhale. "I can't do that." 

"Why not, Mark? No one's stopping you. This is your choice." She's testing me. I can't handle her, I can't handle all these mental tricks.

"Someone's stopping me, okay?" I answer. "This isn't my choice, I'm doing it because someone asked me to."

"Well maybe you should start doing this for yourself, because you're making this difficult for both of us. And you're going to disappoint this friend if you don't get anything out of this. I know that you don't want that to happen."

I want to reach across the desk and strangle her. But I don't.

"So let's talk about this fight, huh?" She leans forward again and nods.

"I don't know..." My voice is quiet. Reserved. Almost scared. "He was just so angry at me and I just...listened. I let him do all the screaming he wanted. How I was being selfish by spending all my time with Emma, and not remembering that there were two sick people in our house. Because I'm supposed to cater to his every fucking need, God forbid." I bite my tongue. It's not time for that. "So I didn't say anything. He finished yelling and I turned and started to walk to my room. And he just said that it was my fault that Collins was in the hospital. That if something worse had happened, it would have been my fault. And I just...I snapped. He didn't say it...but he meant it. He meant that if Collins had died, it would have been my fault. So I just...spun around and threw out my arm and the window shattered. It didn't hurt at first...till I saw the blood at least. Roger freaked out, took me to the hospital. And they sent me here. Is that enough for you?" I exhale. Weights lift off my shoulders. I can breathe.

Dr Lopez nods slowly and gives me a little smile.

"That was really good, Mark."

I don't want to hear her encouragement from her. I just want her to stand there and not respond to anything I do. I want her to be mechanical and spew out answers. I want her to say words like "diagnosis" and "treatment" and "disorder". I don't want to remember that she's human. That she cares...if she does care.

She looks at the clock. "I guess that's all you're going to give me today, huh?" She asks with a little smile. I nod. "Go home and take that nap. I'll see you next week."

I tell myself this is the last time. But I know I'll be back.


	3. Session Three

****

Session Three

I fumble into her office, a mess of movement and sounds, struggling to shove a newspaper into my backpack without hurting my camera. Dr. Lopez stares up at me with the same brown eyes and raises her eyebrow over her glasses.

"You're twenty minutes late." She mutters, placing the papers she had been toying with onto her desk and looking up at me. I sigh, slump into the chair and shake my head.

"I got up late, had to take a later train." My answer is short. To the point. No need for fluff here. She nods and looks at me with something that's not quite confusion. Not quite contemplation.

"Well, I want to talk about something specific today." Her voice states quietly. Those chocolate hands fold in front of me and I lean back. Awaiting. "I want to talk about your family, Mark."

No. No, those walls are up, those doors are locked and she's getting nothing out of me. I don't reply, just sit silently. 

"Can you do that?"

"My friends are my family as far as I'm concerned, Dr. Lopez." I don't want to be speaking. I've got that familiar 'fly' emotion and I notice that my hands are tapping against the side of the chair. I silence them.

"Well, I'd like to talk about whoever you lived with from birth to age eighteen, then." Again, she plays with her words so I can adapt, so I'm forced to tell her the story. I've recounted it in my head, told the abridged version to Roger when I was twelve, but he saw it all first hand. She continues to speak through my contemplative silence.

"Who did you live with, Mark?" She's getting direct now. I decide to just answer the given questions.

"My mother. My sister Cindy is five years older than me and my other sister Melissa was born when I was ten." I mutter automatically, not thinking, just spewing out fact.

"How about a father figure?" 

I realize I left out that minor detail. I shrug. "Yeah, he lived there too."

"You're reluctant to talk about him." She begins, tipping her head again. "Why?" I shrug.

"He's not my favorite person." Responding is a chore. I have to drag out each word.

"What was your relationship with him like?" Her pen attacks the paper with fervor and I wince. 

"Non-existent."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't get along with him."

"Why?"

"No one did."

"Why?"

I cringe at her last repetitive question. The woman can press me until I break and I don't know whether to admire or hate her for her talent. She wants to know why, so what can I do but tell her?

"Because he was a drunk!" I stutter. "He was a malicious person with no ability to convey any emotion but...rage...whatsoever. He was...just...a big roadblock in our family." 

"In what way?"

I explode. "In the way that nothing was good enough for him! B's should be A's, A's should be A+'s. I should have a knack for math instead of English, Cindy should be dating different boys, and I should be dating in general, don't make noise, don't breathe too deep, you'll wake him up, don't tell him that you're going out later, just go, stop being so scared of everything and just do it."

"What was your family like as a whole?" She interrupts my tirade, knowing it's riling me up.

"A war zone. The dinner table was the battlefield. Dad was always the most heavily armed." I mutter quietly.

"Tell me about it."

I blink at her. "What do you want to know?"

  
"What happened? Why were things the way they were?"

I shrug at her and she taps her nails. "There must have been something, Mark. Some sort of pattern."

"We'd sit down at dinner, mom would worry it wasn't good enough. Dad would have something to drink. Jack Daniels, usually. Beer if that wasn't around. We didn't talk. We were spoken to, the four of us, never protested. It was one of the rules. You never talked back without expecting consequences. There was no affection except from my mother. She was smothering to a point, overbearing and concerned. But always at the wrong times. Whenever he'd get angry she'd shut right up and play obedient housewife. Mom was always an actress." I let out a sarcastic grin and Dr. Lopez nods, wanting to know more. I inhale and continue. "She told us to...just deal with it. That's what she did so why should it be harder for us? She'd never say a word against him, he was a lawyer, he had contacts in all the right places. He knew what strings to pull if there was any inkling that things weren't right in the Cohen household. That and she knew what he'd do to her if she told. We knew what he'd do to her if we told. That kept us in our place. The fact that if we did something extreme enough--like say a word to anyone else, a teacher, an aunt a family friend--he'd take it out on her. I wouldn't have cared if I had to suffer my own consequences, but he didn't believe in that. He was unfair. He was...hypocritical. He'd go to work and put these disgusting, scummy people in jail. And he'd come home and prove to us that he worked with his own kind."

She nods and I assume that I've told her enough. But the questions continue.

"What sort of things would he do to punish you?"

"What do you mean?" I ask, my hands resuming pattering against the chair again.

"You keep referring to them as 'consequences'. What were they?" I shrug and shake my head. 

"Just that. Forms of punishment."

"Like?"

I don't want to spew out that sob story again.

"Did he ground you? Yell at you? Hit you?" I must make some sort of physical response to that last one, because she stops. "What would happen?"

I still don't respond. She sighs at me.

"Were you angry with him, Mark? Were your sisters?"

"Cindy denies it, defends him...Melissa just dealt with it. Never said anything."

"Like you?" Brown eyes bare into me and I shake them away.

"This isn't going to get you anywhere, so I don't see why you want to bother with it, Dr. Lopez. I don't tell anyone about this and I'm certainly not going to just recount it to you because you ask nicely."

She lets a little smile curl on the sides of her mouth. "Fine, Mark. You want to do things this way, I'm more than happy. I'll see you next week." She sits back and opens a folder.

"My time's not up."

"You won't be charged for it. I'll see you next week."

I'm out of the door before she can pick up her pen.


	4. Session Four

****

Session Four

This time I'm on time. But it looks like Dr. Lopez got here a little early. 

I can see the second figure out of the corner of my eye, but I don't notice who she really is until I step into the room and past the bookshelf. My jaw drops. My mouth hangs open. I grasp for some sort of words to address her with.

"Cin--Cindy." She looks up at me with blonde locks framing her eerily familiar face. "What are you doing here?" 

"I was hoping you'd tell me." She replies with a skeptical look at the good doctor. Dr. Lopez just smiles at her and settles herself at her desk.

I can only imagine the things that are going to happen here. I spent twenty six years of my life attempting to not deal with this. Attempting to forget this and get away from it and here it is being flung in my face, shoved down my throat and I'm expected to regurgitate everything. Eighteen years of everything.

"I figured you two hadn't seen each other in awhile, so I called Cindy and had her come in for a session with you." Dr. Lopez informs. I narrow my eyes at her and glare as much as I can manage.

"What do we need to talk about, Mark?" Cindy asks me. I give her a quick questioning glance.

"Don't ask me, ask Doc." I nod towards Dr. Lopez and she sighs.

"Well, since Mark isn't going to be doing much speaking..." She folds her hands again in that professional way and I resist the urge to roll my eyes at her obvious attempt at looking better than us. "Mark told me a few things yesterday about the state of your household when you were children..."

"Jesus, Mark..." Cindy mutters. I snap my head to look at her and her blues gaze back at mine.

"What's wrong?" Dr. Lopez asks, eyeing us both as though she were at a tennis match.

"That's so like you, Mark...it's so like you..."

"What!?" I explode. "What are you talking about?"

"You...you have this inner need to go tell everyone about our business!" Cindy spits at me. I don't want her to have this conversation in front of Anne. I don't think I can deal with it, the yelling, the questions, the explaining.

"Cindy...stop it." I mutter.

"No, I mean...granted, this is therapy and all, but what is there about our childhood that has anything to do with the fact that you're a basket case now?" 

Dr. Lopez's eyes widen. I restrain myself from blowing a gasket.

"Cindy, you shut your eyes way too fucking tight when things went on there." I accuse. She looks offended.

"Oh, don't act like I was the only one who didn't fight back. I remember you taking a few knocks here and there without protest."

"I don't want to talk about that, Cindy." I insist.

"Who's shutting their eyes now?" Her voice is demanding.

"It's just...not valid right now..." I look to Dr. Lopez. "Right?" Her brown eyes gaze at me from behind those wire-rimmed glasses and she shakes her head.

"I don't know, Mark, is it?"

"I'm sick of that!" That's it, there's no stopping me now. "I'm supposed to ask _you_ questions and you're supposed to answer them, not turn them around and interrogate me, because in case you haven't noticed, I don't know shit about myself!"

"Mark...calm down." She instructs. I wave my hand at her dismissingly, swatting her idea away.

"No, I want to hear what Cindy has to say. Why don't you tell me what you remember about dad?"

"Mark. Stop it." She insists. I shake my head.

"No, really. Tell me what you remember about dad!" 

"Fine!" She stands and I stand, and the good doctor leans back and watches. "I remember when you played your CD in the kitchen while you did your homework and dad came home and you didn't turn it off fast enough. I remember that you never ran. I would sprint up the stairs and that would postpone the inevitable for about an extra minute but you _never_ ran. I remember you were the only one that got his fists. The rest of us got belts. You were the only one who got face shots, he knew better than to hit the rest of us in the face, it'd show when we went out. But he had no inhibitions about popping you in the jaw. I remember how you used to come crawl in bed with me and cry when you were five and they'd fight right next to your room...I remember everything, don't act like I..."

"You defended him!" I manage to spit out. "You and mom and everyone! You sat there and said that he was justified in doing this!"

"What were we supposed to do!" She shouts at me.

"I don't know!" I shout, my hands furiously moving in cut motions, my head spinning in almost the exact same way, spastic and fast, thoughts streamlining and disjointed. "I don't know what I was supposed to do, but you weren't supposed to tell people that it was okay!"

"I never told people it was okay!" She shouts back in a flurry of anger that I haven't seen from anyone in my family in a long, long time. It scares me almost.

"No, but you told us! You told me! Every time it happened, it was 'You shouldn't have set him off, Mark, now we're all in for it' or...or...'You shouldn't have said that to him!' Like it was _my_ fault for speaking in that place!"

I watch as Dr. Lopez scribbles down on the paper as soon as I say the word 'fault'. I cringe. Something is amiss.

"Well it _was,_ Mark! It was your fault every time you got belted, you were so fucking cocky to him! Like you didn't expect to get something in return, when you knew what set him off!"

I stutter to explain, my hands running through my hair desperately. I'm scraping. She's right. It wasn't abuse, what I thought I'd gone through. It was my own fault I had been digging my own grave. It was as though Cindy was stepping on my fingers as they tried to hold on to my understanding of the family situation. And were losing their grip.

"You'd have us believe you were a martyr, sacrificing yourself for the sake of me, Melissa and Mom. Taking the beatings to protect us. and now you're going to sit here and play victim!? It was your own fault! Every hit, every bruise, every angry word was _your fault_. Deal with it!" 

I don't reply, I just stand and pace. My face feels red and flushed.

"You weren't the only one that got hit, Mark, you weren't the only one who--"

"Stop it!" I shout. A childish instinct wants to cover my ears.

"Stop thinking he was a monster!"

"How can you not!?" I beg her. She glares.

"Because you made him that way!"

"That's enough, Cindy." Dr. Lopez interjects. My mouth hangs open stupidly. Unsure. Confused. Believing my sister. I caused all of that. If I had kept my mouth shut. Cindy sighs and stammers before she picks up her bag.

"I need to pick up Hannah from pre-school..." She mutters bitterly. She strides to the door, stops and turns to look at me. "I don't know what kind of problems you're dealing with. But keep them the hell away from me until they've passed."

And with that she's gone. Out of here like I was just another problem to be solved. She didn't want any part in it. I was in her way of being a normal woman. I was a brother in the way of his sister's life. I was a bad example. I was a sickness. I was a roadblock. I was nothing.

"Mark..." Dr. Lopez begins.

"No!" I shout, storming towards her desk. "I told you I...I said I didn't want to talk about that! I told you!" My voice is ragged, I'm practically screaming. "Are you happy?! Do you have all you need in that little notebook to diagnose me!? Go on, Doc, what's wrong, what the fuck is so wrong with me that I can't be near my own sister!?"

"Mark, please, let me..."

"NO!" I shout, louder this time. "Where do you get off!? Where do you get off making me miserable, forcing me into this shit? I said _no_, Dr. Lopez, didn't you hear me? I said NO!"

"You're believing her, Mark!" Dr. Lopez interjects. She stands and approaches me. "You're listening to her and you're believing her. She's got a very skewed view of your life, Mark. She doesn't know what happened to you most of the time, does she?"

I don't answer.

"Things have happened to you. Things your father did or said. Things you're not telling me, and that'd be fine. But the point I'm trying to make is that she doesn't know. That's why she's saying these things - because she doesn't know…does she?"

I stay silent. More silent that before. My breathing is shallow. I don't want to hear my voice, I'll be even more disgusted. I feel my stomach churn and I have the strong urge to throw up. 

"Does she know everything that happened between you and your father? Your mother even?"

I retract from her and put my hands up.

"I don't want to fucking talk about this!" I shout, my face hot and red again. "I don't want to think about this! I don't want to care about this!"

"You have to, Mark, that's why you're here. You're caring about the wrong things too much and the right things too little."

"Don't...don't shove me in some category!" I spit at her, my eyes stinging. I will not break here.

"That's not a category Mark. It's your problem. You focus on the little to run away from the big." 

"That's not true..." I point, still screaming.

"Yes it is. You numb yourself to the bigger events that happen to you and agonize over the smaller ones." She insists. She's wrong. She's so wrong.

"No!" I shake my head at her and pace. "No, you're wrong, you don't understand! You can't understand!" 

"Then explain it to me, Mark!" She begs. "Tell me what you're dealing with so I can help you! Stop being so afraid of me, I'm not going to think less of you for what you're feeling! I'm going to try and help you figure out why you feel the way you do and why it's bad for you and why you're not able to deal with it in a healthy way. I just want to have you talk to me, Mark. Just tell me why I'm wrong."

"Because you act like I don't feel the bigger things!" I insist, eyes brimming. I swallow tears. No, no, no. Not now! "I do feel them! I feel so much that I'm numb!"

Dr. Lopez looks like she's struck gold. "What do you mean, Mark..."

I can't stop now. I've just got to get this out...if not for my sake then for hers. I open my mouth and every word is water rushing out. 

"I do feel them, I feel them so much that they just stop eliciting responses anymore! I mean...I'm so used to feeling them that it becomes natural to me. It's an everyday thing for me to be upset so it shifts into the norm."

Dr. Lopez nods as my voice shakes. "So why do you react to petty arguments the way you do?" 

"I don't know..." Dr. Lopez puts her hand on my shoulders.

"Yes you do."

"To get response to something, to react to something!" I shout, sounding like I'm in a complete rage. "Why can't I just get through one moment of my life without acting like a complete nutcase?"

Dr. Lopez shakes her head at me. "Because this is the way you deal with things, and it's not a healthy way..."

"I know that! I know that, why else would I be here!?" I'm not angry at her, I'm just screaming because I can. Because it's a release for me. I've done my fair share of crying, breaking down, having "episodes" whatever you want to call it, but none that felt like this. None where I was feeling such a release of emotions that I didn't know how to handle before. None that felt healthy. This feels healthy. This feels okay, I'm not screaming to nothing. I'm spilling it all out to someone. It may be a stranger, someone who I pay to listen to me bitch and whine and throw a fit, but it's someone. It's not the walls, or my blankets, or silence. It's someone. Responding to me. I don't know if that's awkward for her, or shameful for me, it's just releasing.

"You're here because you need something. An outlet, right?" She pleads with me again. "You need something to get all of this out to, and you think that no one wants to listen to you. So that's where I come in, you feel you can talk to me because it's my job to listen. But I want to help you, I'm not just here for myself, I'm here because helping people is what I love, it's what I'm good at. I didn't bring Cindy here today to hurt you, or to make you talk to me. I brought her here so you could see how someone else views things that have happened to you...if I had known that she was going to blow up like that, place blame on you, I would have never..."

I cut her off, taking a few steps back. "No, she was right!" I cry, feeling a twisted urge to laugh. "She was right, I brought all of that on myself."

"She's not right, Mark. I know your father's record."

"What record?"

"I handled your aunt."

I blink at her. None of my aunts have been in therapy. Not to my knowledge anyway. "Which aunt?"

"Your mother's sister Lynn." So she's not lying. I blink.

"What did she tell you..."

"Patient confidentiality." She lifts a cautionary finger.

"She knew? My mother told her!?" I rage again.

"Mark. Just calm down, alright?" She begs. I nod and I let out more hideously dry laughs. At least she knows I'm not lying. I nod and sigh, composing myself. No time for breakdowns anymore. "This is good for you. Knowing this and dealing with this now, letting it effect you is good for you."

"Then why do I feel like shit!?" I ask her, my voice still ragged. I may feel better for letting this out, but that didn't make it go away and I don't know why. Isn't that what's supposed to happen? I open up and things get better?

"Because that's not all that's to it. You've got to do more that acknowledge that it's there. You need to do more than recognize that you're blocking things out. You need to absorb them, let them in, let them effect you." She informs. Her eyes dart to the clock. Mine follow.

"We're 20 minutes over..." She apologizes. "Go home. Take a nap or something, just relax and don't think about this right now. We'll get into how to deal with it next time..."


	5. Session Five

****

A/N: _Sorry about the lack of development on the character of Emma on these coming chapters. She's developed in other little fics I have scattered about, but I neglected to do it here. All you need to know is that she's an emotional basket case. The kind of girl that cries at Hallmark commercials. Sort of motherly too...yeah, continue on._

Session Five

I arrive on time, opening the door to her office slowly, noticing that it feels heavier. More ominous. Something lingers in this office. The remnants of what I've said, maybe? The unavoidable fact that we're going to talk about it today? I'm not sure. It's something there and it's something that I've never dealt with before. But it's here now and there's nothing I can do to avoid dealing.

"You're early..." Dr. Lopez remarks, eyes looking up from the paperwork she's going through. Stuff that I hope doesn't pertain to me right now. 

"I know...Emma dropped me off on her way to work." I sit myself in the chair as usual, tossing my bag beside it and curling my legs up so I'm sitting Indian style. I look down at my sandals, my jeans falling over them in a listless rest. I tip my head and look up to her as she begins to speak.

"Who's Emma?" A small smile escapes her and I feel myself flushing red.

"A friend." I insist, pointedly. Lightheartedly.

"What kind of friend?" She sounds like a teenage girl getting gossip, and for some reason this is comforting to me.

"A friend!" I insist, annoyed.

"Tell me about her."

"Why?"

"Because you're red." Her saying this only makes me blush harder. I watch as she leans forward, smile sliding across her face.

"Emma's...Emma. She lives in my building. We hang out sometimes...she's just...an escape in a way..." Dr. Lopez leans back and takes out her notebook. I knew this human conversation was going to end sooner or later.

"How is she an escape? An escape from what?" Her pen slides over the yellow paper and I inhale.

"Whenever Roger and I argue, or...just...when I can't think, she always manages to knock, or come visit, or ask me to come to dinner with her or something, and I end up forgetting. I end up laughing my ass off, or getting into a debate about good movies or music and not worrying about Roger being an asshole, or Collins being sick. She's just...an easy escape for me." I inform. Dr. Lopez nods and I smile at her.

"Is that what you use her for, Mark? An escape?" She folds her hands again and I pause. I had never thought about that before, the fact that maybe I don't genuinely like Emma like I had thought. Was I just using her as an escape from the norm? Did I like being with her only because she was different? Did I like her because she didn't shove her problems on me? What if one day there was something she wanted to talk about, would I have been able to listen?

"Mark?"

"Huh?" I snap out of my daze and look back up at her. She adjusts her glass.

"What else do you like about this person other than the fact that she's someone to vent to. Because if that's all she is, you should just pay her and get rid of me..." 

I look up at her. "No...no, that's not all."

"Then what else?"

"She makes me laugh. I mean, she has the dumbest jokes. And she has a great laugh too...she snorts. Most people would find that so unattractive, but...it's so endearing."

"So she's someone to make you forget about your problems?"

"No. She's a friend. Not a defense mechanism." I reply in offense.

"Is she just a friend?" Dr. Lopez asks me with a lilt.

"What kind of question is that?"

"Are you with her? Dating?" 

"How is that your business?" I spit. Anger again.

"Well, I think that all aspects of your social life are my business if you expect me to help you here, Mark. I just want to know if you're seeing anyone, specifically..." She looks down at her paper. "Emma."

"No. We're not dating."

"Are you dating someone?"

"No." I answer sharply. 

"Any reason?" Dr. Lopez asks. I look up at her and try to stop myself from laughing.

"Well." I begin. "Women and I don't exactly coexist peacefully."

"You fight? Don't get along?" She continues.

"No. No, I mean...we get along fine. Women just get bored with me and decide that it's easier to sleep with 40 other people than just leave me." I shake my head and Dr. Lopez nods at me.

"What are your views on relationships, Mark?" She asks me quietly.

"What do you mean?" I want to be difficult. I don't like questions about love.

"I mean, what do you think about relationships?"

I hate them. "I think they're...a waste of time..."

"Why?"

"Because...they never lead to anything substantial and I always end up miserable in the end." I answer, sounding like an angst-filled teen rather than a 26 year old guy with veritable problems.

"What's happened to make you think that?" 

"My ex-girlfriend that's a lesbian, or the one that dumped me on valentines day? Or the one that told me that I made her too miserable to continue dating..."

"I see..." She nodded and cut me off. I think she was afraid of where I'd head next.

"So I tend to stray from any sort of ties to girls. They all waste my time."

"Even Emma?" The words hit me at full force and I can feel my brain struggling to think of a witty retort.

"I'm not looking for something like that with Emma. I mean...she's a friend. A nice girl, but...we wouldn't work."

"So you've thought about something like that with her?" She leans forward and looks at me.

"How do you infer that? I just said it wouldn't---"

"You saying that it wouldn't work tells me that you've considered whether or not it would work, Mark. Make sense?"

I mutter a few incoherent things and nod at her.

"So why don't you tell me what your real feelings towards Emma are?"

I stare at her in contemplation.

"Well?" 

"Okay!" I stutter, not wanting to hear her ask me again. "Okay, so I like her, so we've done a little more than friends do, but that doesn't mean I want her to be my girlfriend." I shudder at the fact that I sound like I'm sixteen again.

"What _does_ it mean?"

I let out a long sigh and lean back. "Why must everything mean something to you?"

"Does it mean something to you, Mark? That's all I want to know. Because if it means something to her, and not to you...and you don't tell her, you're going to get burned again."

Hm. Fair enough.

"Well...I mean...it's not like it means...well...it's not nothing...I mean...it's...something...I guess...things are...not just...it's like..."

"Slow down..." Dr. Lopez orders. I comply. "What would you do if Emma approached you with the idea of...a relationship sort of thing?"

"I--I don't know. Roger says she's something I need. Roger really gets along with her despite what he may act like. And I guess he's right. She's good for me because she...doesn't pity me. She lets me know when I'm acting like a moron. She tells me to snap out of it when I'm being a brat...but she listens to me when I really need to be listened to..." 

"What kind of qualities do you look for in someone?" Dr. Lopez interrupts my tirade.

"What, in a girl?"

"I suppose..."

I shrug and lean back in my seat. "I don't know. Someone...who knows how to...just...listen. And not tell me how I should fix myself or...whatever. Someone who can just let me rant and rave all I want and calm me down when I'm done." I dangle my legs over the edge of the chair and she looks up at the clock.

"Time's up." What a cliched line.


	6. Session Six

****

A/N: _Okay, here begins the cheese. Out of all the chapters, this is my favorite, and probably the most muddled. Emma's character gets a lot more definition, but, in my head at least, not enough. Again, Work-In-Progress, people. Suggestions loved. Hate it? Like it? Lemme know!_

Session Six

I should have been able to predict that she'd be here. I step in, looking like hell, my hair practically standing on end on its own, wearing an old ratty thin t-shirt and a pair of cords. And there sits Emma. Prim and proper in another seat next to my usual one. Red curls are up in a perfect knot and she's dressed casually in a black button down and some khaki capri pants that let her calves peek out. She's wearing a pair of black flip flops. So cool and comfortable. She smiles up at me and I sigh. I had been keeping what I've said in here to myself, not telling Emma, Emma didn't need to know about that side of me. Not yet, at least.

"Hi..." I stutter out after staring at her for a moment.

"Hi." She smiles at me. Dr. Lopez's voice snaps me out of my lull.

"Sit down, Mark and we'll start." I can do nothing but obey. I offer Emma a little grin and raise my eyebrows as if to convey to her _I can't wait to see what we're headed into now_. She smiles back at me confidently.

"So, Emma." Dr. Lopez begins. "Do you have any idea why you're here?" 

"Not really..." Her voice trails off and she looks at me with concern.

"Well..." She continues. "Mark and I discussed yesterday that he doesn't really open up to many people, and he explained that he does a lot of talking to you when he has a problem. I figured that having you tell him some of your concerns will...alert him to them a little more than my saying them."

"So you dragged me in here to point out Mark's faults? How is that going to help him?" Emma: 1. Lopez: 0.

"Because you obviously think that he's got some things that aren't exactly healthy going on, so why not share them? Do you think that it would be fair of you to keep them to yourself?" Emma: 1. Lopez: 1.

"No. But I don't think it's fair that you're asking me to berate him. If he starts doing something that I think is harmful to himself..."

"You think that putting his hand through a window isn't harmful?"

"I'm RIGHT HERE!" I shout. Emma and Dr. Lopez look at me apologetically. "Jesus! I mean...I understand that you're trying to help, but come on! I don't want to sit here and listen to you bicker about what's good for me and what isn't! If I'm fucking up, tell me I'm fucking up and get it over with, give her what she wants!" I look at Emma and she averts her eyes. I stare at Dr. Lopez. "And if she doesn't have anything to say, don't dig on her because she wants me to do this on my own." 

"Fine." Emma begins with a wave of her hand. "Fine. I worry, you know I worry about you. I've told you that much, and...I don't know." She lets out a long sigh. "You and Roger are vicious to each other, and I've seen the way that you guys just...tear each other apart. It makes me angry that you let him, though. No matter what you say to him, he doesn't care. He can brush anything off, but you can't. You act like you can, and you pretend like it doesn't bother you, and you push it away and shrug it off and ignore it, but I know it sits and festers and grows into something ugly. And then you and Roger can have a little fight about who didn't go grocery shopping when they were supposed to, you can just..." She brings her hand up in an elegant sweep and snaps her fingers. It's hard to believe that a motion so flawless can be in reference to something to gruesome. "Snap. You can...just...break. I've seen it, I've seen you go nuts." She turns to Dr. Lopez. "Is nuts a bad word?" Dr. Lopez motions for her to continue. "I don't know...it's scary. I mean...I can sort of sense when you're on your last leg of patience. And I try to stay away from you. I don't like having to avoid you..."

I stay silent. Emma clears her throat a little. Dr. Lopez instigates.

"Mark?" Dammit.

"No one says you have to stay away from me, Emma..." I start, annoyed.

"What am I supposed to do? I don't want to be the one to set you off, so..."

"So staying away from me is going to do me a hell of a lot of good. Not being available when you're the only person who listens to me..." Emma cuts me off.

"No. That is not true, I'm not the only one who listens, I'm just the only one you talk to. And I don't know why you feel the need to come to me every time you have a problem."

"Oh, sorry to be such a burden, Emma, I didn't know it was such a chore for you!"

"Get off the cross, Mark!" She cuts me off again and I shut my mouth. "You're not some...some lost little boy who can't convey emotions, you're not...I'm not going to feel bad for you for this!"

"Let me guess, because it's my own fault, everything is _my_ fault..."

"Here we go again with the self loathing! That's all I hear from you! How you can't do this, and you can't say that, and you want this and you want that and you aren't doing this, you aren't doing that, and this is all your fault, and why is everything your fault?"

"Emma..." I mutter. I want her to stop talking. Now.

"Everyone's problems don't center from you, Mark. You aren't the cause of the world's troubles. Just your own. You're your own worst enemy, and in turn...you're making everyone else your enemy."

"Emma." Sharper, clearer.

"You've got to fix yourself, figure out what the hell makes you hate yourself so much before you can figure out why other people are staying clear of you."

"Emma!" I shout now. She cringes and quiets herself. Dr. Lopez stares at us.

"Let her continue, Mark."

"No, I don't have anything more to say..." Emma spits. I cringe.

"Liar..." I accuse. Emma stares at me.

"It takes one to know one." And then I feel something break, just like Emma said I do.

"How? How am I a liar, what have I done to lie to you!?"

"Mark, your whole attitude is a lie! Your whole...whole...demeanor is a lie! You put on this happy face for everyone and act like it's really you! And it isn't!" Her hands move in a fluttery wave. "I know what you're really like, you've shown me! You're not always happy, and you're not always willing to listen and you're not always dedicated to the interests of others."

"Oh...stop it! You don't know jack about who I am! I've shown you nothing...nothing! Don't get all high and mighty, like you're the resident Markologist. You're not! No one is!" I'm standing now and Emma stands as well.

"Why do you do this, Mark?" She asks, voice high and shouting. "Why do you open up to people and then...negate it, like it never happened? I don't get it!"

"Because it doesn't mean anything! I say things to you that don't mean anything, I'm a liar, remember?"

"Don't twist my words around!" She slings back. I blink and put my hands up.

"Don't act like you know everything, Emma. Don't act like you can fix me!"

"What needs fixing, Mark!?" She asks me.

"I don't know, Emma! That's all Dr. Lopez ever asks me, do you think that if we knew we'd need you? Do you think that if I knew I'd be here? I wouldn't, I'd be at home, dealing with...whatever this is on my own!" Turning my head, I scramble to pick up my bag. 

"Mark, where are you going?" Dr. Lopez asks.

"Away, away from here." I mutter, tugging my backpack on.

"Mark, we have 20 more minutes and you're not running out of here..."

"Watch me." I spit, heading towards the door.

"Mark..." Emma starts.

"No!" I open the door and slam it behind me. But I don't move. I listen. I hear Emma sink back into her chair. I hear Dr. Lopez shift.

"I don't know how to help him, Emma. I don't know what I can do, every time we make any slip of progress he does this. He pulls away and we need to start from square one again..." Dr. Lopez's distinctly authoritative voice is almost desperate. Pleading.

"I know. I know, that's how he is with everything. I--we...we'll share something, he'll tell me something and then act like...it never happened."

I collapse against the door, sitting helplessly on the rug and I just...listen.

"You care about him, Emma. Don't you?"

"Of course I do! Of course I care about him, but it's so hard to have to leave everything up to him. I can't make any decisions about us, because it's bound to inconvenience him. He's got this big master plan--or so it seems--and I don't fit into it and he's thrown off by my presence in his life. He's just...it's...I don't even know what to describe it as anymore..." Emma's voice trails off.

"Emma...what do you want from Mark. In any sense..."

"I want him to stop thinking that one spontaneous action is going to ruin his life. I want him to stop having these deep conversations with me that mean nothing. I want him to stop being scared of change. He doesn't understand that he has to change and adjust to fit things. He thinks that he can go on living his life this way, this...lost, hopeless miserable way! I want him to stop being so indifferent about things..." She pauses and I can hear her leaning against the squeaky leather of the chair. Or maybe she's standing, I can't tell.

"How do you feel about him?"

Oh God.

"I--I don't know. He won't let me feel anything about him, that's the problem."

"But if he would, Emma. What are you capable of feeling about him? What do you see in him that's good, rather than bad."

There's a long, drawn out, excruciating pause.

"I see something that no one else sees. I don't know what it is, but it's there. I just can't reach it, he won't let me get in and pull it out of him. I can't even convince him that it's there. I want this all to stop, God..." I hear footsteps. "I want him to stop closing himself off to me, that's why he's here, right? So he'll start talking? I just...I don't even know if I want talking, I just want him to figure out what the hell he wants so he can tell me and I can accommodate. I want to help him, Dr. Lopez and I don't know why I can't. I feel like there's nothing I can do to fix him because he won't let me see how."

"I know, Emma...I know how hard it is to tear words out of someone whose mouth is sewn shut like Mark's."

"No, it's not his mouth! It's his head, his heart, his thoughts, his feelings. They're behind something, some big wall of...something!" Her voice shakes. I hear rustling of something.

"Keep going, this is helping both of us. And it'll help Mark in the long run." Dr. Lopez's pearls of fucking wisdom.

"I---I--I don't know! It's just hard. I love him. Okay? I've said it, I love him and that's too big for him. I wish he'd just...I don't know! I've tried to tell him that I loved him. He senses it, he senses that the words are going to come out of my mouth and he changes the subject, or he leaves, or he goes off on a tangent so I forget. But I don't forget. God, I just want to be like...four or five again when if you had a problem, you fixed it with some cookies and it was over." She pauses again, paces. "I've tried, I mean...to fix him. But he just...holds so much in. I didn't know one person was capable of repressing so much. So he just...keeps it all locked up and it runs out in little spurts. He takes it out on me, Roger, the fucking weather. Or a window. All the things that don't matter in the scheme of it all. He just needs to breathe, step back and look at the big picture. He needs to stop being hooked on the small and meaningless and just look at it all. Assess things that way. If he doesn't do that then...then he won't get over the bigger things that are slowly...tearing him inside out."

"I understand."

"I don't know if I can do this much longer."

"Do what?" Dr. Lopez's voice gets a little quieter.

"Love him and get nothing back."

The words hit me like a steady blow to the chest. I lean back and curl my knees up a little, ears still perked to their conversation. But all I'm getting now is silence. I can imagine they way they're looking at each other in there. Emma, confused and in need of answers. Dr. Lopez having the same problem. Neither of them have answers.

"I need you to fix him, Dr. Lopez. Maybe not fix him. Just...show him it's not a bad thing if he's upset. That it's not a bad thing to be sensitive..."

"We'll keep in touch, Emma. This has been very...informing to say the least."

I scramble to stand. My legs carry me towards the elevator, but not fast enough. The ominous click of the door tells me that this is it. I take this head on now or never.

"Mark..." Her voice is faint. I turn and she's stalking towards the elevator like a woman with a mission. I stand there, the button to indicate that I want out...not yet pressed.

"Yeah..." I mutter as she nears me. 

"I thought you left." Red-handed.

"No. I stayed. Listened. I was just sick of yelling." Which is true. I didn't need that. I couldn't yell at her anymore. I couldn't listen to her yell at me.

"You heard all of that?" She asks me with an innocent, doe-eyed look.

"Of course I did."

"Well?"

"Well what?"

I expect a tirade. I expect her to snap again. But no, she just looks at me with this helpless, defeated gaze.

"Never mind." Her finger leans in and presses the button for the doors to open. That was _my_ panic button. Dammit, she was supposed to scream and rant and rave and I'm supposed to take that and run with it.

"You told her you loved me." I point out.

"I know." 

"Why didn't you tell me that?" She turns as the elevator doors slide open. Her lips part and she speaks very softly.

"Because I don't think I could handle it if you didn't say it back." She steps in the machine. The doors slide shut. And I'm left alone in an unfamiliar corridor.


	7. Session Seven

****

Session Seven

I don't want to be here, and I do my best to convey that through the way I'm sitting. My eyes are locked on the bookshelf, I'm slouched, resting my head on my left hand, elbow on the mahogany arm of the chair, feet tapping. I want no part in this anymore. I haven't spoken to Emma since last week at the elevator, and I blame Dr. Lopez. I blame these sessions. I blame myself.

"Well, Mark..." She begins. I fight the urge to mock her tone. "Seems you're in quite the hole, here. Quite the predicament."

"No thanks to you." I don't think about saying it, it just happens. Dr. Lopez's eyes widen and she sighs.

"Why is that my fault?"

"Because, you told her to say all of those things, you made her give you all of that information."

"And you stayed to hear it." She points out. "You could have stormed out, left, and been none the wiser. But you chose to stay and you suffered the consequences. You got to hear what you were too scared to let her say."

"I wasn't scared to hear her say it. I never silenced her." I correct, still lazily slumped in my chair.

"That's not what she told me. She said that whenever the two of you begin to talk about something serious you change the subject, you avoid it, or you find an excuse to leave. That, in my opinion, is your way of silencing her."

"How do you know what my intentions are, how do you know whether I want to silence her, or I if I avoid it because I don't want to hurt her by not thinking the same way?"

"I don't know that. Only you do." She leans back in her seat and looks me over. "So what is it? Is it too big for you or is it out of the question?"

"I don't know. I don't want to think about that right now." I shake my head as she makes some notes on her paper. 

"Well, Mark. You've just shown yourself your biggest problem. Avoidance."

"What, because I don't want to think about how I've ruined a perfectly good friendship?"

"Yes. Because you push things down. You're agonizing over this, aren't you?"

I shrug my response.

"How did you sleep last night, Mark? As a matter of fact...how do you sleep in general?" She moves forward and poises her pen. I wince.

"I don't sleep...really. When I do, it's only for a few hours." She nods and makes a few marks.

"Insomnia is a sign of a troubled mind. It's a sickness to an extent; the direct result of your own inability to express yourself and come to terms with yourself in the waking hours. So, your head races while you try to sleep and you end up analyzing your actions during the day. What was wrong about them, what you could have done, said differently."

She sounds so technical, so scientific, but somehow I understand her. It applies to me, sure. But I won't tell her that. Apparently, my silence speaks volumes.

"You're three more sessions away from your requirement, Mark. Either we deal with this now, or this was all a waste of your time and money."

I inhale and sit up.

"What do you want me to do, Dr. Lopez? What should I do here? Do you want me to start telling you things? I have. Do you want me to start reacting? I am. What more can I do?"

"You can start doing things out of the office. You can start approaching your family and working things out with them, you can start listening to Emma and telling her the truth about how you feel. You can start talking to your friend Roger about things not always being your fault..."

I groan and lean back in my seat, slouching again.

"I don't want to have to tear things down and rebuild them. I want to just...start fresh."

"They'll have questions, Mark. If you start fresh, you won't have any answers."

I shake my head and fold my arms.

"You make things so complicated." I inform her.

"I've heard worse things from patients."

I nod. "I believe you. I know I'm not the worse case you've seen in here."

"You're right. But you're one of the most stubborn."  
"Thanks." I smile a little. She nods. There's an awkward, uncomfortable silence. "I'm fake, aren't I?"

She stops dead in her writing and looks up. "What was that?"

I inhale. "I'm fake. From what Emma said...from what I know. From what I've seen in other people that I considered fake."

"Explain to me..." She implores quietly. Gently.

"She was right. I put on faces. I've got a whole bunch. The happy Mark, the caring Mark, the angry Mark, the upset Mark. I put them on when appropriate. None of them are me. They're just...various things that I've seen on other people."

"Why do you use them?"

"They're easy."

"Do people get to know you for real at all?"

I shake my head. "I don't think so."

"Why don't you start letting them?"

"What if they don't like what they see?" I ask with a shrug. "What if they don't like the real? What am I supposed to do then?"

She doesn't have an answer for that one, and I chalk it up as a victory.

"So that's me, Dr. Lopez. One big phony. Someone who has no idea about self-identity. I couldn't write or film anything biographical because I don't know. I don't know what I am. Who I am. Who my friends are. 

"Why is that, Mark? Why don't you know?" She asks.

"Because I don't exist."

The words echo. They knock in my head. I repeat them to myself over and over. I believe them.

"Of course you exist, Mark."

I shake my head. "No. I'm a name and number on a social security card. I'm another face. There's nothing I have that no one else has. I don't know who I am. I don't know who my friends are, because none of them know me." I pause and look up at her. She's listening intently to my every word. That unnerves me.

"I can assure you that you exist. If there was no hope, I wouldn't be wasting time here. I would have turned you over to a psychiatrist."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because what you have, drugs can't fix."

I let out a dry laugh. "That's comforting."

"It should be. You don't need to alter any chemicals in your head. You're not 'crazy', as you put it." She looks at me and nods. "You just need to talk. Maybe there are some things you can't say to me, but you need to say them to someone. Someone you trust."

I nod in agreement. "I know."

"Then start."

"I'll try."

"That's a big step in finishing this, Mark. Talking." I sigh and run my hands over the arms of the chair. 

"I know."

"Can you take it? Or are you saying you will so I'll let you off the hook?"

"I need to do it sooner or later. Why not start now?"

Dr. Lopez nods, closing her eyes. She doesn't believe me fully, and I don't either, but it's a start. Right?

"Have you seen Emma since last week?"

"Nope." I shrug. "She hasn't called, I haven't seen her around the building..."

"Do you think she's avoiding you?" 

"Probably."

She's silent again and I look up at her expectantly. "Maybe you should call her...find some way of communicating with her..."

I shake my head at her. "No. Not right now. I don't think that idea will fly with her. Maybe when my ten sessions are up. Maybe when I'm normal."  
Dr. Lopez laughs at this. I snap my head up at her. "What?"

"Nothing, Mark. Nothing."


	8. Session Eight

****

A/N: _ Okay, so I haven't been on task. But here it is. Session Eight. And Session Nine is in the works._

Session Eight 

Well, here I am. Back in this office. Three more sessions to go and I can call this quits. Dr. Lopez isn't here yet, so I pace for a little, as usual. I have no idea what she's going to want to talk about today, if we have anymore mystery guests, what's ahead for me. I still haven't seen Emma. I still don't know why she hasn't come to see me. Possibly because I haven't made any advance to see her, either. And it's my own fault in that aspect. Right?

The door swings open and in she strides, seemingly confident and perfectly business like. I quickly sit, like the kindergartener that noticed his teacher coming in the room while he was fooling around.

"Hi, Mark..." She smiles at me. I tip my head at her overt friendliness. 

"Uh...hi." I mutter back suspiciously. She plops into her chair and flips through her notebook, turning to a fresh page. I smirk at this and she looks up at me over those glasses.

"How've you been?"

"What do you mean?" I ask. She's never so vague. There had to be a catch.

"In general. How've you been getting along?"

"Fine, I guess. I haven't really talked to Emma yet, and Roger's been pretty absent around the house. He's been playing a lot of shows..." I nod silently and Dr. Lopez mimics my action.

"Have you been out and about?"

"What, out of the loft? I go grocery shopping...out to do laundry..."

"What about fun?"

"What about it?" I raise an eyebrow at her again.

"Well, you've told me all about what makes you miserable. What do you do for fun? Anything?"

I blink at her again, suspicious. "Uhh...well...I...film stuff." Five bucks says she asks me what kind of stuff.

"What kind of stuff?"

I sigh. "People, places...friends. Oh, last week I was out filming and I got this great shot of this guy at the park with his daughter. He was standing at just the right angle and I caught the sun in the background. Pink colors, I wanted to edit it last...oh my God. I just heard what I sound like. No wonder I can't get dates..."

Dr. Lopez laughs at this and it seems like for once this might go without incident. That is, until the door flies open and in barges Emma. I blink. Dr. Lopez looks puzzled.

"Hi!" She spits, stalking over to me and extending her hand. "I'm Emma, remember me?"

"I tried to stop her!" The receptionist shouts from her desk. I can only look up at her, completely baffled.

"Uh...hi. Wh--what are you doing?" She stares at me in a fluster and tosses her hands up.

"Well, I thought that since you haven't so much as spoken to me in two weeks I should track you down!" She stutters out. I lean back and hold my head.

"Emma, you stormed out of here like you never wanted to speak to me again!" I remind her. Leave it to her to be the big drama queen.

"That's when you CALL ME!" She bellows. I wince. "Don't you know anything about girls?"

I scoff. "Have I nod made it abundantly clear that I know little to nothing when it comes to girls?"

"Well why don't you go ask Roger!?" 

"Roger?" Dr. Lopez echoes.

"Oh, you haven't heard about Prince Roger?" Dr. Lopez has heard about him, but she's just listening now, listening to Emma start her long tirade. "The sun rises and sets around him according to Mark! Nothing can be done unless Roger is taken care of first, nothing at all. Gotta make sure Roger is accommodated before we can even breathe! Gotta let Roger live vicariously through me cause he can't do things on his own..." 

"Emma, enough!" I sigh, sitting up. She quiets herself and stares at me.

"Do you see that, Doc? The second I'm right he doesn't want to hear it."

"No, Emma, I'm just sick of you yelling. I'm right here, we don't need to shout...six inch voices." I taunt bitterly.

"Fuck off..." Emma snaps.

"Okay, okay..." Dr. Lopez interrupts. "Mark, why don't you talk about Roger a little more...you've been very vague about him..."

"Roger isn't my problem." I insist. Dr. Lopez seems intrigued and she leans forward, folding her hands. 

"Well why don't you tell me what is your problem so we can work on fixing it?"

"Because...it's not one isolated thing, is it? It's not all just Emma, or all just Roger or..."

"Wait, wait, wait, I'm your problem?" Emma shouts. I sigh. 

"Emma, maybe you should wait outside, okay?" Dr. Lopez asks. Hazel eyes glare at the doctor and Emma storms out in a flurry of red hair and hand motions. The door swings shut and clicks. I blink up at Dr. Lopez and tip my head.

"Well. That was...odd..." I sigh a little and lean forward again.

"Is she always like that?" She asks me, a little laugh on her lips.

"What, a hysterical mess? Yeah, she's usually worse." I advise. 

"So talk to me, Mark. About Roger. Why did Emma say that..."

Up to this moment, I have successfully avoided talking about Roger. It's something I'm quite proud of. But now, here it is, right in front of my face.

"Roger isn't my problem..."

"Roger's the reason you came here. You put your arm through that window because you were angry at him..." She looks at me as if to ask if she's right. I know she is, but there's no way I'm going to tell her.

"I did that for a lot of reasons."

"Like?" 

"Like the fact that Collins was sick and I was selfish. Of course Roger was a part of it, but he's not my only problem. I'm far more screwed up than that."

She shakes her head. "Tell me about him. How did you meet, what's your friendship like? I want a summary..." She picks up her pen and starts to scribble.

"We met in high school...uh, he was one of those problem kids, and I was his mortal enemy, a geek. But he never really bothered me. We met in the office one day, I was turning in papers for some teacher, Roger was sitting against the wall. He started mumbling about some class, and I ended up talking to him. Kinda weird way to start off a friendship. Pretty soon, Roger was in a way, protecting me, and I was helping him graduate. He went off to start a band, I went off to college. I dropped out of college. His band failed. So one day, he calls me up and asks me if I'd consider moving in with him and some friends. Figuring I have nothing to lose, that's what I did. And I met a whole bunch of people in that loft, roommates constantly moving in and out. The only people that ever stayed there were Collins, Roger and I. And April before she died."

"Who's April?" Dr. Lopez asks, a new name for her to jot down.

"Roger's ex. She killed herself." My words are very sharp. I've never recounted April's story to anyone. I inhale, and attempt to continue. "She...Roger..." Attempt one is a failure. "She used heroin. A lot. More than Roger did. That's how he met her, through his dealer. Roger was a heavy user, don't get me wrong. But April...April was insane. She could never get enough, she never got high enough. And she bought...well, at least, Roger told me she bought from less than stellar dealers. So she got less than stellar drugs at a decent price. She and Roger shared needles. Little did Roger know that April was sharing with a friend too. So...April got AIDS and gave it to Roger without either of them knowing. That was until April went for a checkup. I had been out all day with Maureen and some people, and Roger went to some audition with his band. She was in the bathtub. I just thought she was passed out. And then I saw her wrists. She wrote on the mirror in lipstick. So...Roger was sick. He vowed to quit drugs, so that was six months of hell. He was the sickest I've ever seen anyone during those months. So I took care of him...I guess that's where Emma gets that from. I've spent my life taking care of Roger. Making sure he passed classes, making sure he didn't die, making sure he ate, slept, breathed. And I still watch out for him, but...not as much as I have. Is that so bad? To want to make sure your best friend is alright?"

Dr. Lopez lets a silence hang after my diatribe. I tap my fingers. I listen to the low hum of traffic below me. Leaning forward, she shrugs her shoulders.

"Have you been basing your life on his concerns?" She asks me this quite clearly and quite tangibly. Her question is crisp and cut and very impersonal. It chills me.

"I don't know if I've been basing my life on it...but he does worry me. He's one of my concerns. He always will be."

"And why is that?"

"Because he's one of the closest people to me. I mean...he's my best friend, and I'm his, so he's one of my worries."

"Have you ever considered that maybe this is why you don't have luck with other people? The fact that you're so obsessed with helping him, saving him..."

"What, you're saying that I can't get dates because I'm too busy with Roger?" I pin her question, cut away the ambiguity of it and face it head on.

"In a roundabout way, yes. Is that what the problem has become?"

"No."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because...I...I'm not obsessed with Roger! I mean, how completely screwed up would I have to be to..." I don't finish that sentence. I know that I probably have the potential to be completely moronic and messed up and negligent of people because of my need to play the role of Roger's mother/doctor/best friend/therapist/cheerleading team. I know I worry too much about him, I smother him...it's a fact of life. It's something I've accepted.

"Mark, I'd like Roger to come in with you next week."

"Are you out of your mind? He doesn't go to his own therapist never mind mine. He's stubborn, way too stubborn to help you or me, or...all we'll do is argue, this isn't a good idea." I'm rambling in protest. She shakes her head.

"Just talk to him. Ask him to come with you. I want to talk to both of you."

"Do you really think this is going to help anything? That talking to Roger is going to get you anything? Cause it's not. Getting stuff out of Roger is harder than getting me to talk, I promise you."

She smiles at me and tips her head in that typical fashion, brown curls loose today and bouncing to the side a little. "Well, I'll see what I can do. Please. Do what you can to get him to come. If you have a problem, let me know and I'll call him. If I don't hear from you, I'll assume he's coming with you next session."

Damn her and her tricks. I nod and stand to leave. I swing open the door and notice that Emma has already left.


	9. Session Nine

****

A/N: _This chapter's been stuck for awhile, but I need to make a few thank you's before I let you guys read it._

****

Joanne: Thank you so much for all your Roger-input and help and encouragement and ego-boosting. This chapter would be a blank page without your help.

****

Leah: Thanks for tolerating my endless babble and neurotic whining, and also for the Roger characterization help.

****

Andy: For all your help on Session Four, and just your dedication to reading this never-ending fic of doom.

****

All the readers of The Whole of the Moon: I know I don't update as often as I should, but thanks to anyone who checked out Sessions because of TWOTM.

****

All the readers of Sessions: Thanks for reviewing and not slamming me, even though I'm sure some of you want to. Sham on and keep reading. I've got one more to go. And now...Session Nine.

****************************************************************************************************************

Session Nine

Standing in the elevator, I idly glance over at Roger. His once-blonde hair is now in a state of perpetual brown. Eyes that are a much darker blue than my own search around. I'm assuming for an escape. He doesn't want to be here. Maybe more so than I do. His hands are shoved in the pockets of his too-comfortable jeans and he leans back against the wall. Turning to me, he breaks the silence.

"So what does this shrink want?" His gruff voice asks. I turn to him as well, my own worn t-shirt pulling as I do so.

"She's not a shrink, she's a therapist. And I don't know what she wants. I barely know what she wants from me..." My voice is childish in comparison to his. 

"So what am I supposed to do?" He asks, sounding almost accusatory.

"I don't know, Roger...just answer her questions, alright?"

The elevator doors slide open and I watch as Roger slides out with some form of wariness. I follow him and we make it past the desk and into Dr. Lopez's office without incident. She's already sitting there, waiting for us. Waiting for this all to explode. For some reason I feel like the weeks I've spent here have been culminating to this one moment. This has been leading up to this. Something here is going to happen. I don't know what. Maybe I'm going crazy...or crazier and this is nothing. Just another session. Just one more towards the end.

"Hello..." Dr. Lopez says looking over Roger like he's an alien from another planet, but then finally settling back and extending her hand. He shakes it, looking at her in the exact same way. I sit down in my usual seat, leather creaking as it fits my form. 

"Hey..." Roger mutters, taking a seat beside me.

"You're Roger, I assume." I wince, expecting a sarcastic comment from him.

"Who else would I be, do I look like Emma?" Bingo. Dr. Lopez raises an eyebrow and makes a few notes.

"Well...how about you tell me about Mark." 

I narrow my eyes at her. "Say what?"

"I want to hear how you are at home from someone other than you." 

Roger squints a little and shrugs his shoulders. "I don't know, he sits around the house, does some camera crap, watches TV. Goes to the bathroom...whatever..."

"Does he leave the house a lot?" She asks. I squirm in my seat.

"Beats me. I mean, he's usually around when I am, locked in his room, tinkering with his piece of shit camera." Roger shifts as well, beaten boots sliding around on the untainted carpet. I still feel awkward and weird and not right. 

"Does Mark pick fights with you, Roger?" 

"Oh come on!" I find myself squeaking out in protest. That question was unfair, and Dr. Lopez knows it.

"All the fucking time. But I mean, that's just Mark."

"I don't pick fights with you, Roger, if anything, you do some big attention-starved action and make me want to rip your eyes out."

"Roger..." Dr. Lopez interrupts, flipping through her notebooks. "If there's anything I've learned about Mark..." She looks over at me, avoiding having to talk about me, and deciding rather to talk to me. "It's that you don't like to fight. At all, actually, your reactions to Cindy, your reactions to Emma. It seemed both times that you were just struggling to look the other way, to not react. Do you agree?" 

On the spot. Answer. Say something. "I--I don't know, I mean...come on, when you have things like that thrown at you, what would you do?"

"Well, I'm sure someone who tries to turn the other cheek when confronted wouldn't be one to instigate a confrontation."

Roger sits up a little and I feel myself freeze. This can't be good.

"What the hell do you think you're talking about?" He asks Dr. Lopez. I cringe and do my best to sink into my seat.

"Excuse me?" She stutters, adjusting her glasses.

"How long have you known Mark...no, how long have you seen him, maybe once a week for two months? And you think you know him? You think you can tell _me_, his roommate, who has lived with him for five fucking years that I don't know what I'm talking about?" Roger fumes.

"Watch your language, please." She warns. Funny, she's never told me to watch my language.

"No! I will not watch my fucking language, I'm not your fucking patient!" Whoa. Score one for Trash Mouth over there. I actually find myself slightly entertained by watching them. "And Mark shouldn't be either!"

"What makes you say that?" She asks, calm, cool...annoyingly collected.

"Because...you come in here, and think you know him just because he's told you a few secrets! Just because you ask him some questions about his childhood doesn't mean jack shit! You know nothing when it comes to Mark. Nothing."

"How do you know the things we've talked about, Roger?" She asks, scribbling down some notes. Roger stands, and I scoot back in my chair.

"Will you quit taking those goddamned notes? You're not here to analyze me!"

"Roger..." I warn. This has gone on just a minute too long.

"No." He snaps. I back off, as trained. He barrels on like a speeding 18-wheeler on the wrong side of the highway. "I know what you guys talk about in here, I know the stupid questions you ask him, I know how you brought Emma and Cindy in here, and just let them go. I know that, because guess what? Mark tells me things because he wants to. Not because I make him, and not because he has to. You've got him all fucking wrong! You think he comes in here and shows himself to you in full? You think he's being completely truthful? Cause he's not. I can guarantee it. I know Mark a hell of a lot better than you do..."

"I'm not disputing that, I..."

"No. No, but you're trying to pin his problems on me..."

"Roger, this isn't about you..." I chime in. He looks down at me with almost a glare. Just enough to set me on the wrong side of comfortable.

"You're right, this isn't about me. But when you come home and tell me that you two did nothing but chat about how fucked up I am in comparison with the rest of your life, what am I supposed to think?"

"Roger..." Dr. Lopez speaks up and he whirls back to look at her. "What I'm seeing here...is that you need Mark, correct? You need him to survive, you depend on him, and you value him, and he's someone that you connect with. And you're afraid that by coming here, Mark is going to learn that you may need him, but he doesn't need you. And then all the insecurities that keep Mark tied to you are going to be cured, and you're going to be left in the cold."

"This isn't about me!" He shouts again. "Look, lady, you can sit here all the fucking live long day trying to figure out how I factor into Mark's little problem sphere or whatever the hell you call it. But what you don't know about Mark _and_ me for that matter, I could just about squeeze into the Grand Canyon. So do us all a favor and drop the whole charity act. You're not doing shit by sitting here and trying to place blame."

"Roger, for Christ's sake, she's just trying to help!" I manage to finally raise my voice above a squeak.

"My ass she's trying to help!" He slings back, and I roll my eyes. "Don't you see, Mark? This is a waste of your time! This whole thing is a waste of your time!"

"How!?" I shout back. "How is this a waste of my time, what better things should I be doing? How is this not helping!?"

"Because! You're not crazy, Mark! Therapy is for people who can't talk to anyone else! You can talk to me, you can talk to Joanne, and Jesus, as much as I can't stand listening to her, you can talk to Emma! If you didn't spend so much time getting wrapped up in other people's problems, and actually decided to worry about yourself once or twice a week, maybe you wouldn't freak out and break a fucking window! You wouldn't need to come here if you just stopped being so damn generous! Be selfish for once in your life, it won't kill you!"

"Dammit, Roger, you don't understand, you never understand! Coming here and talking to someone who forgets about it as soon as I leave the room is so much easier than telling you, or Joanne, or Collins, or Emma! I like being able to bitch to Dr. Lopez and not have to make explanations, or justify anything, or over explain. I like knowing that as soon as she leaves this building, she could care less about my problems!" Realization hits me. All of that is true.

"Jesus, Mark, get a fucking diary then!" He shouts. He seems offended, shocked that I'd rather tell my problems to a stranger with a degree than to him.

"Roger...come on..." I sigh. I suddenly feel a headache coming on.

"No...I put up with so much shit from you, Mark, the yelling, the criticism, the..."

Snap. Something clicks and I let go.

"Oh, well excuse me Mother Theresa! You put up with my shit? Yeah, well it's a two way street! I put up with the drug use, I walked you through withdrawal, I pushed you to come out of your shell after April died, I put up with being ignored for Mimi! I let you walk all over me for a year, and I didn't act like a martyr for it! So don't come to me and tell me you deal with my shit, because you don't deal with it. You let it happen and you turn the other way!"

He pauses. There's a silence. Doctor Lopez is watching like a hawk.

"I turn the other way? Is that what you think?"

"It's not what I think, Roger, it's what you do! Just because we live in the same apartment and talk, doesn't mean you deal with my shit!" God, I can't stop, I can't stop letting this all out.

"That's right, because it's your shit! I shouldn't have to deal with your shit!"

"Yeah, and I shouldn't have had to take care of you while you could barely walk because you were so fucking high! I shouldn't have had to clean up needles while you were using, or...or spend every night in your room while you were in withdrawal, but I did!"

"No one asked you to save me, Mark! What, do I have a neon sign on my head that says 'I need help'?"

"I wasn't going to let you die!" I blurt. "But I dealt with your shit. Don't ever tell me I didn't. Maybe I didn't have to, whatever. The point is I did. I dealt with every second of it. I wasted a year of my life dealing with _your shit_, and I'm sorry if I come off as attention-starved when I ask you to deal with mine. You tell me you want me to worry about myself? To stop solving other people's problems? Well here it is, Roger. I'm done saving you. I'm done fixing you. It's my turn to worry about me. You're saying that I can come to you with my problems, fine. I will. You'll hear anything I feel the need to spill from now on, and you can choose to deal with it, hell, all I want is for you to listen without making it about you. You can take that as you want."

There's another pause from Roger and Dr. Lopez. I feel like I have nothing more to say. I've just managed to pretty much deal out my problems with Roger in one concise and only slightly scarring argument. Now, if I can escape this without a bruise or an even more broken ego, I'll consider this a successful venture.

"I wish you'd do this more often, you know. If you did, you wouldn't putting your hand through windows." Roger manages to speak up softly. Where is that voice coming from? That's his Mimi voice, I've never heard him use that voice in reference to me. I look up at him and shrug.

"Yeah, well maybe if I went to therapy more than ten times, I'd be able to do this more often. You know, the whole talking to you thing that I'm not so good at." I mutter, scratching at the back of my neck."

Silence. It unnerves me. It always has. I clear my throat and speak up again. 

"You think this is a waste of time, Roger, but it's not. I mean...so I haven't spoken to Cindy since she was here, but maybe that's for the better. Maybe she needs time to work through her own issues with me. And maybe Emma does too. Maybe I needed to think about the same things. How I need to adjust myself to deal with them. You think therapy is a waste of time and money. Maybe it would be for you, I agree. You think it's for prissed-out, stuck-up rich boys who have issues with their mothers...okay, I can understand that. But for me...I guess it's kind of working. At least, these sessions have been. So, don't tell me that this is a waste of my time, okay? Cause...I don't know. It's worthwhile to me. Don't you think so?" 

Roger's shoulders slump a little and he cocks his head to the left. "I guess. I mean...you haven't freaked out about groceries or anything lately." He sighs, one of those long, heavy, conceding Roger sighs, and shoves his hands in his pockets. "Yeah. I guess it's your thing Mark. I guess it's something you need to do."

I nod. Dr. Lopez sits up in her seat. Roger shuffles around aimlessly.

"Time's up, Mark..." She almost whispers. I stand and nod. 

"Yeah...I'll see you next week."


	10. Session Ten

****

A/N: _Thanks for sticking it out. I'm all done now. Mark isn't mine, Dr. Lopez and Emma are. Review me if you like it, if you don't. Whatever. Another hearty thanks for all the time you guys spent reading this._

Session Ten

This is it. The end. No more. All I have to do is live through this and I'm done. Free. It feels kind of liberating. Knowing that I've made it through ten weeks with this woman, and that it's done some good. It's helped, at least slightly. Or so I seem to think. My head feels clearer, at least. It's not completely clear...nowhere near it. But it's better.

"Hello, Mark..." Dr. Lopez pipes up when I enter the room. I smile at her and sit down in my chair for the last time. Damn, does it feel good.

"Hey..." I speak, adjusting my glasses and pushing them up closer to my eyes. She smiles and scoots forward on her swiveling leather chair.

"So...last session, huh? After this I can sign that paper, send it to the hospital and you're a free man, so to speak..." She teases. I offer her another smile and nod, looking down at the carpeted floor.

"Yeah, I guess so..." I look back up at her and she smiles at me. Genuine. Not the fake therapist-smile I've seen in the past weeks. 

"So...why don't we finish up by...just talking. You tell me what you feel you've gotten out of this. What you still need. What your concerns are..." For once, I don't hear a pen click and papers shuffle. No more taking notes...no more analyzing every thought and spoken word in this room.

"Alright..." I mutter.

"So. How are things with Cindy?" She asks. I shrug my shoulders.

"She hasn't spoken to me since she was here. My mom calls a lot, gives me an update on how Hannah and Sam are...but other than that, no word from her." And then, I find the words I've been thinking just fall out. "It's better that way."

"Why is it better that way?" 

"Just because. You saw how we were in here. Neither of us are ready to sit down and fix that, and it's better to not talk to her at all than to skirt the issue and feel all awkward. It's not like our family was all that close-knit anyway. She has her views and I have mine. And we're not going to change each others mind about that. So...it's better this way. When things...develop I guess, we'll fix it. We'll both stop being stubborn and set and we'll...I don't know. We'll fix it when we need to. I'm not exactly missing out on anything. Am I?" Dr. Lopez's eyes are wide. Surprised that I'm talking so willingly? Maybe.

"I suppose not." She nods her head and folds her hands. "How about Emma? Have you seen her since...two weeks ago was it?"

"Yeah..." I nod, folding my legs in a more comfortable stance. "We fought, as usual. and...talked. A lot." 

"About?" Dumb question.

"Everything. Why I was a mess, why she was so upset. Just...everything. Why we were so harsh on each other...all the millions of reasons why we won't work."

Dr. Lopez's head tips almost apologetically at this. "What about the reason's why it will?"

"We went over those too..." I mumble, scratching the back of my neck. "I guess...I guess we decided to not...expect so much anymore. Because it's obvious that neither of us can do anything about it right now."

"Did you find it easier to talk to her? To tell her about your concerns instead of catering to hers?" She asks me. I shrug, pausing a little to think about it.

"I guess. I mean...things aren't perfect, but...they were a little easier." She accepts this answer and moves on.

"I don't think we ever addressed the issue of your friend...Collins, was that his name? How is he after his...attack..."

I shake my head a little, sitting up in the chair. "He's in the hospital again. The doctors are trying to tell us that there's a possibility he'll get better instead of worse, but...we know. Roger and I both know..." I hadn't spoken about Collins to anyone yet. Not Emma, not Joanne. Of course, they knew it was happening, they went to visit, they came to the hospital. But I've never said a word about it until now.

"Know what?" Dr. Lopez leans forward and nods a little.

"That he's sick of fighting anymore. He knows it. We know it. It's only a matter of time before his body knows it. I'm headed over there after this, actually. I told him I'd come by and hang out with him..." I laugh a little. "He's so bored there."

"How much longer do you think he has, Mark..." Her face is concerned. For me. 

I stutter, incomprehensible noises coming from me before I make some semblance of English.

"A few weeks. A month, tops..." One would think that saying that would make me realize it fully. But it doesn't. I know it should register, but it's not. I know I should feel so...not like this. But I don't.

"What is your friendship with Collins like?" She asks, pulling out her glasses and putting them on. Without thinking I blurt out something completely true.

"The only stable one I have..." My own voice chuckles a little, and my thoughts move way too fast for me to get them all out. "Collins is the only person I've ever really told pretty much anything to. He's great like that, he can listen and not lecture you on what to do. And he was always the brains. I mean, Collins, paired with Roger and I were just...so weird. You have Collins, the NYU professor. And then you have me, who did two years at Brown before dropping out. And then there was Roger, who had never seen the inside of a college save for a frat party or two. So Collins knew everything, where the cool places were, how to hotwire cars and ATMs...not like we ever did that...but, I don't know. It just...freaks me out to think that he won't be there anymore. No matter what...I knew I could always count on Collins to be there and have advice, or food or money...or anything we needed. He was the provider. The one with all the ideas and all the solutions..."

"And without him...you're..."

I laugh a little, dryly. "Lost, I guess."

She nods. "So that's why you're so worried about Roger being around, right? Since you could share those things with Collins, when he's gone, you've only got Roger left. It's just you two."

It all makes perfect sense in her head. It fits in mine too...a little more jumbled and not so clear cut, but pretty much the same idea. I nod at her and she smiles.

"So, Mark. Here's what it comes down to." Removing a manila folder from her bag, she opens it up and looks down at what it entails. "I'm fully prepared to sign this paper. You run it to the hospital, and we're done. That's it. You don't have anymore obligation to see me, or the inside of this building ever again." She clicks her pen and scribbles her name in a long, flowing script. I feel myself exhale.

"So, that's it?" I ask. "We're done?"

"As soon as you sign it." She pivots the paper and turns it towards me. I look down at the blank line under her name. "You sign it if you believe that this has been beneficial and you won't be needing the hospital to cover anymore. If you don't sign it, and decide to continue here, you go halves with the hospital." 

"Well...what do you think? I mean...am I...all set here?" I ask, taking the pen from her.

"I can't tell you that, Mark. That's a decision you need to make. Not me." 

Dammit. Not as easy as I thought it'd be. I let the pen hover over the paper for a moment before she speaks up.

"I think you should take this home. Sit down and think about it before you make a decision. Okay?" She hands the paper and folder to me and I stand. 

"Yeah..." I mutter, handing her back her pen. She extends her hand, takes it, and then keeps her hand out. I take it.

"If I don't see you again, Mark..." She shakes it and I nod. 

"Yeah. Thanks..." The only words I can manage to stutter out. My head's trying to decide what I need to do. I leave her office and head straight for the elevator. I enter and rest my head against the wall. I thought this would be easy. I go in, have her sign the damn thing and get out of here. No strings attached. But no, I have to think. I have to fucking evaluate myself. 

Have things really gotten better? I suppose they have. Maybe not better, but a little easier. It's easier to talk to Roger, it's easier to listen to Emma, it's easier to dismiss Cindy. It's better, yes. So I should be done, right? 

Wrong.

I'm not done, I'm nowhere near being done with this. Sure, I can survive without it every week. I don't need it. I know I don't need it to live. I've done just fine without it all my life. But for some reason, something's changed. There's something here that wasn't before, or maybe something's gone that I had before, or maybe it's all in my head and therapy is what Roger said it was, a big fucking joke. But I don't care. It makes things easier for me. I

I watch the doors slide open and a few people stare at me as I don't move. They clunk shut again and I press 21 on the row of buttons. I feel it jerk to start and continue to carry me up.

Maybe I'm a nutcase for deciding to continue. Maybe I'm wasting my money.

But at least I'm sleeping at night.


End file.
